Well I know this already, but it's good news to those who don't know it is optional. I've heard a lot of complaining about having to use the touchscreen so often, like in Uncharted Golden Abyss. It does actually take from the experience when touchscreen swiping becomes tedious. At least they're making it optional so you don't have to swipe every single time. I wish they would use the gyroscope for precise sniper aiming like in Uncharted.

the melee combat being optional is great news, not just in terms of my own gameplay of the game but also because review sites like ign (or as i call them, IGNorant) etc cannot now complain about the touchscreen in their reviews like they do in every biased psvita review, and give higher review scores based only on the awesomeness of the game and the hardware that i've seen in gameplay trailers etc, which then makes casuals buy the game as well as us hardcore gamers and increase game sales as well as psvita sales!